Cusil based Heatsinks.

[Kumagoro]

I remember way back when in chemistry that silver was the best pure metal Heat conductor. I have never seen (all though have never tried to look) a silver based Heatsink and was wondering why. Silver isnt that expensive.

Also I know that the alloy Cusil (72% Silver, 28% Copper) is an even better Heat conductor. Can you get cusil heatsinks for PCs?

Also in the last micromart they discussed heatsinks and in it they say that while copper has a better heat transfer rate, Aluminium has a higher heat capacity.
I have often heard people say the copper base Aero7 lite out performs the all copper Aero7. Maybe the Aluminiums heat capacity is the reason.

Through all the recent common heatsink developments they dont seem to be trying different materials beyond Aluminium and Copper.

Links anyone?

[Lee H]

I've not heard of any CuAg compound heatsinks as yet as most new heatsinks are moving towards the copper with heatpipe technology installed, but eventually there maybe a cooler that uses CuAg as a heat transfer, I'll have a mooch about and email a few people and see what they can inform us.

Best Regards

Lee

[Lee H]

Heres some links for you to read

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1282

and heres one thats shows how to make a homemade cooler

http://www.7volts.com/silversink.htm

Best Regards

[SilentDeath]

Kumagoro - silver, and CuAg are only good, for air heatsinks, for making money. Marketing departments can have a lot of fun, with these two...

I see very little point in using an expensive heatsink, made from expensive metals, when watercooling would be cheaper. Silver is very expensive, when compared to copper. Only pure silver can really be used, sterling silver (92.5% Ag iirc) is worse than copper. CuAg, iirc was proven worse than pure silver, but I do not have a link to back that up - however I can say it will probably be a bit more expensive than pure silver.

For heat transfer the specific heat of a material is irrelevent. It will only deicde how quickly the temperature stabilises, and wont affect acctuall temperatures.

Kumagoro - If you are interested in this then look at forums.procooling.com in the waterblock develempment section.

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1282 <- this link is a good example of how silver is used in marketing. The difference of having the heatsink all silver would only give a few degrees difference in temp. Plating is just for looks and marketing. plating it will do nothing to performance.